


The Dark and Biting Deep

by MissGillette



Series: Xavierine Rare Pair Hell [3]
Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Angst, Deep Sea Mermaids, M/M, Mermaid Charles, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-25
Updated: 2016-09-25
Packaged: 2018-08-17 06:25:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8133659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissGillette/pseuds/MissGillette
Summary: Logan saves a creature of the deep from fishermen. But nothing is ever that easy.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I can't believe how long this is. And like... nothing happens????? I rated this as M at first, but then remembered there's nothing here to warrant that. I don't know what this is, but have fun. Thanks to the five people who will read this lol.
> 
> Sorry to folks reading The Neglected Garden. You all gonna wait for new chapters, because I hit a plot pacing issue and got discouraged. 
> 
> Wanna make it official? [Follow this](http://missgillette.tumblr.com)

Even before they’ve docked in the wind swept, frigid port, the taste and smell of salt bites at Logan’s heightened senses. The overwhelming salt and fierce winds match the gray palette someone used to paint this place. The tang of fish held in the bays beneath the deck disappears as they near shore. Ropes and the planks of the dock are crusted white with ice and salt from the sea. Cold wind rips at any exposed skin, but the sting never lingers long for Logan. For the hundredth time, Logan eyes his human crewmates and wonders how they stand it without super healing. The sea leaves her mark on each of them, with scarred and rough faces and uneven gates in others. He’s happy to escape unsacthed, except for maybe the smell putting him off fish for awhile. When they dock, they’ll hand over care of the cargo to another team waiting for them, and Logan can seek out familiar faces near the railroad tracks he knows are far from the ice and wind. His boots thud dully on the dock with his first step when he not so much as  _ hears _ a voice but feels it touch his mind with chilly fingers.

_ Help me _

His crewmates sweep by him like a river passing over a fallen log. They chatter in the wispy language he’d not picked up in the months with them. They don’t seem to hear the voice like the closing of a coffin droning in his head.

_ Help me _ , booms again between his ears, louder and more powerful this time.

Logan shakes his head, dislodging some sharp frost from his hair. He eyes each ship for the presence. Wandering up and down the crowded docks, touching the freezing hulls of bobbing boats when he can, Logan searches. He believes the presence has passed or never been real at all when time passes and nothing happens. He stops in front of a hulking ship, bigger and farther out than the rest, and digs in his pockets for something to smoke. There’s nothing, though, and he just grumbles into the scarf wrapped around his neck. Night is falling in this northern town, and the sun is quick to die this time of year.

_ I’m here _ , the voice whispers in his ear with phantom lips grazing the skin.

The boom calls out from the hull of the giant ship beside him. Logan’s gaze crawls up the red side of it to eye the deck high above him. No crew linger on the ship, and it’s too old for cameras. Tossing a glance over his shoulder, Logan frowns at the empty, frigid air around him. His patience grows as thin as the sunlight clinging to the earth. He takes a step away from the ship, boots crunching in ice and salt, before the voice rattles something loose in his head.

_ Climb aboard the ship, _ urges his legs forward without his permission.  _ Open the largest hatch on deck _ , orders his muscles to pull and strain to lift the heavy, metal door. When he looks down into the cargo bay, down into black water, two bright points of light gaze up at him. But there’s no light inside the bay.  _ Get me out of here, _ commands his hands to throw a life preserver from the railings into the bay.

The foam thing hits the black water with a loud smack. Instantly, an arm as gray as death with scales missing and slopping off juts from the water and curls around the preserver. A creature hauls itself up, with stringy hair and hollow cheeks pushing its appearance even closer to that of a corpse. Eyes glare up at him, big for the face they’re in — and incredibly blue. Logan would turn tail and flee if he could move on his own accord. Instead, he wraps the stiff, salt-crusted rope leading to the life preserver around his hand and hauls the thing up. The creature’s torso gives way to scales so black they shimmer green in the twilight sunlight. More scales are missing from the tail, victims to decay and rubbing against the inside of the hull. Fins with spines along their ends are broken off, and the webbing between those spines are torn and ruined. Logan gets his arms around the creature, colder and heavier than the dark water it had survived in, and gags at the scent of decay that rises from its flesh.

He thinks,  _ Where? _

At his shoulder, the creature opens its mouth to reveal rows of needle teeth, some missing and some broken. It hisses out its gills and turns its face away from the wind. If not for Logan’s sealskin coat, he’d be frozen from all the water dripping off the creature. Pained and writhing in his arms, the creature fists clawed, webbed hands in his coat. Blood wells up from the damage on its tail, and it drips down to the deck in drops the color of plums. Gills flick wetly at the creature’s exposed neck, and Logan thinks of water, of the water splashing below their feet.

_ No! _ Rings so loudly in his head that he staggers.  _ Anywhere but here _ , it seems to beg.  _ Water, but not here. _

Logan’s mind fights the control the creature has over him and conjures an image of who he’d actually come to see. The big tent should be set up by now. Everything should be off the railroad tracks and in its proper place, with opening night tomorrow. The team should have the big tank set up already…

“I know a place,” Logan forces out his numb lips.

  
Wrapped in a tarp he’d snatched from a boat, he carries the creature under cover of darkness. They pass a few people in the village, but they float through the village like a gentle breeze, unseen. Logan smells the set up camp and marches towards it under the thing’s spell. Jean doesn’t ask him questions when he stumbles out of the night and asks her about the tank they use for some stunts. The tank Jean leads him to is full of water drawn right from the sea Logan has just left. The pull of the water rouses the creature, and it makes curious clicking noises in his arms. Jean eyes his bundle, but she doesn’t reach out to see what’s under the tarp.

She’d expected him, but not like this. He walks mechanically, still under the control of the rotting thing in his arms. Even Jean notices the smell. Another member of the circus spots them on their journey to the tank and joins them, offering to help Jean open the lid despite her ability to do it quite well on her own. The helper is a young thing, someone Jean must have picked up during the long and winding road to the seaside village. Logan has never seen her before, that he knows.

With the tank before them and the lid temporarily removed, Logan climbs the slippery, metal ladder up to the top and dumps his load into the water. The thing sinks into the depths with only a glance back at Logan. Even its eyeshine disappears in the depths. Its power over him slips away gradually, and Logan flexes every finger and toe in wonder when he regains control. He’s fallen prey to a mutant with mind control powers before, but never that fine or all-encompassing. He’d barely been able to fight it at all. He blames its injuries and inability to breathe properly. Lid replaced, the three of them back away. A light set up behind the tank passes through the dark water and allows them to see through it. They watch a shadow cut through the light, tail long and damaged as the creature paces its new cage.

_ Thank you, _ it whispers to Logan, exhausted.

Jean slides a hand along his frosted coat, and Logan jumps at the contact. She recoils, and Logan hunches his shoulder as he stalks away. Hopefully, Scott has already set up their tent and arranged the beds. He’d love a shower, but there’s no source of hot water in the camp. And to bother any of the kids who control fire is beyond his capabilities right now. Logan finds his tent with Scott by scent and flops in the bed that still stinks of iron and engine oil from the train. He stays awake long enough to throw his coat off and remove his boots. But otherwise, he sinks into the welcoming arms of sleep much like the creature had slipped to the dark depths of the tank. Scott has to shake him awake in the morning, he sleeps so deeply.

 

 

  
In between shows, Logan is drawn to the tank by some force pulling at a spot behind his navel. It’s not the creature, he decides, but something curious and hungry in him. If he sees the tank from a distance, nothing stirs the dark water inside. But the moment Logan draws near, a shadow passes the glass wall and lingers there. Sometimes, those large eyes Logan knows are watching him catch the light and glow in the pitch black water. If he’s alone with no one wandering past, he might catch the glimpse of a hand touching the glass or a fin flashing into the light. On the second night of them being there, Logan stays long enough for the creature to give a glimpse of its face. The hallow in those cheeks persists. It crosses Logan’s mind at that point that the creature will need food, just like anything else alive. He’s late to his next performance and stinking of fish, but he performs with a clear conscious. 

He never lingers to watch the creature snatch the sinking fish and tear them apart. The first time he’d thrown them in, a vision of a man being dragged from the shore on a moonless night sets his teeth on edge. Unbidden, the scent of blood fills his nose, but there’s nothing bleeding nearby. He decides the creature would sooner devour him than treat him in a friendly way, now that it’s safe and away from fishermen. Logan fights the allure of the tank every day and battles the crash of waves on a dark night in his dreams. Bottomless, blue eyes follow him in those dreams, and his bone claws are powerless to stop his plunge into the deep. He wakes every morning covered in sweat and gasping for breath. Sometimes, he wakes in the middle of walking to the tank. He seeks Jean’s power to see if he’s still under its spell, but she assures him otherwise.

The night he wakes with one foot hovering above the tank with its lid tossed on the ground, Logan is sure this is some sea creature trickery. The momentum of his body carries through the motion, though, and he steps into the water. He sinks like a stone, through a pillar of light, and into the dark. Something scaly crawls up his leg, but he’s frozen and can’t fight. The gray face, fuller now and with gleaming scales fresh and healthy, looms out of the dark. Logan watches it on the edge of sight, with black spots blooming in his vision.

_ I could eat you, _ it taunts him.  _ Humans are quite tasty, even drowned ones. _

Logan scowls at it with his lungs burning. He tries to form a thought like he had when they’d first met, but the panic of drowning takes up all his brain power. He has no choice but to remain calm, though, even as the creature’s tail coils around his legs and tightens with every passing moment. Logan’s stony expression and empty thoughts give the thing pause, though, as it stares at him in growing confusion.

_ You’re not afraid of me, _ it speaks in his head as it pulls their faces closer until their noses touch.  _ Do you not fear death? _

Logan closes his eyes against the burning salt of the tank and recalls every moment someone has tried to kill him, without success. Curious fingers flick through the memories like an office worker searching for a file. The pressure shifts around them, and when Logan opens his eyes again, they’ve surfaced. The creature’s hair plasters to the side of its face, which it cards back with a sharp claw. Logan’s eyes drift down to where its gills flutter about its neck. They could certainly be more different, but Logan still isn’t sure what to make of this… thing.

“I have a name, you know,” it says with a soft, melodious kind of voice. A man’s voice. How it manages such a clear, pretty voice with a mouth full of needle teeth, Logan isn’t sure. “Although I do appreciate your sense of mystique about me. In my native tongue, my name is rather difficult for you humans to pronounce, so I’ve adopted a more… human sounding name. Please call me Charles.”

Logan hums while staring at him. His lungs spasm, and he coughs to the side rather than risk spitting on… Charles.

Smiling with his sharp teeth shining in the dim light, Charles unravels his tail from Logan’s legs and pushes him towards the ladder at the far end of the tank.

“Do come back, especially if you bring fish with you. But also warn your little blue friend who teleports to stop dangling things above the water to test me. I  **will** eat him.”

Logan shakes the frigid, briny water from his hair and growls, “You stay away from Kurt.”

Charles flicks water at him. “Gladly. Keep him away from my little pool.”

He slips beneath the water without another word to Logan. Blinking salt out of his eyes, Logan stares down where his feet disappear into the darkness. Every once in awhile, he spies the pale, lithe form of Charles circling below. Lungs still aching from partially filling up with water, Logan twists around in the tank and hauls himself up and out. He drips all the way back to his tent, and he shoves Scott outside when he laughs at Logan’s watery state. Something that sounds an awful lot like “drowned rat” might come out of Scott’s mouth, but Logan yells over him and can’t be sure. The dreams of drowning stop, and he doesn’t sleepwalk anymore. Instead, his brain conjures images of him floating in an endless abyss. Something fast and pale darts through the water, just on the edge of vision, but Logan always wakes up before anything else happens. He keeps bringing Charles fish.

  
  
  


Just after sunset, when the sun has warmed the tank’s water all day, the temperature is mild enough for Logan to stay. They try to communicate telepathically, but Logan struggles to think anything coherent back at Charles. So instead, when the water is at its warmest, he forgoes a shirt and jeans and loiters in his underwear at the surface. Charles points out that he could just stand on the ladder and talk, but Logan shoves water at him and that ends the argument. With constant food and a larger tank meant to sustain a water-bound creature rather than hold it, Charles’ rotting scales have all disappeared. The corpse look he’d been going for has improved, too. Although as a creature of the deep, he’d explained, the surface pressures would always have an odd effect on him. When Logan gets a decent look at the rest of him, from gray torso to his green-black tail, he notices something odd.

“Shouldn’t you have more fins along your flipper? It’s uneven.”

Charles’ eyes dart to where fins are obviously missing and submerges that part of him deeper into the water. “There’s a reason I don’t like humans, Logan. Haven’t you wondered why I was in the bay of that ship?”

Logan’s shrugs sends ripples to the far edge of the tank. “I figured the sailors caught you but didn’t know what to do with you.”

Vision falling out of focus, Charles turn inward for a moment and leaves Logan’s assumption to hang in the air. The cheers and laughter from the big tent spill through its openings and fill the camp. They won’t have to deal with patrons this deep in the camp, but the sounds of mirth while something agonizes Charles rubs Logan the wrong way. He flicks water at Charles’ face, and Charles blinks through the surprise. Charles glances at him with a nearby light throwing a razor-sharp shadow across his face. The spark seems to drain out of him as he considers his words.

“Have you ever been… experimented on? Because you’re different?”

The bones in Logan’s hands ache. “Some have tried. I always managed to escape.”

Charles nods, and the motion sends him bobbing in the water. He drifts closer to Logan and throws his arms over the side of the tank. Head resting on his bundled arms, he peers at Logan through half-lidded eyes. As a creature of the deep, they catch every bit of light around and shine at Logan through the dwindling light. Charles’ tail and fins keep the rest of him still, but their movement stirs up an underwater current. The push and pull of water wraps around Logan’s legs as if Charles were touching him.

“I didn’t, once. I was with another member of my species. We were… careless.” Charles’ arms over the side of the tank tighten their grip. “We were held together at the same facility, experimented on. But then one day, the humans took my friend away, and I haven’t seen him since. They were moving me to a new location when I happened upon your mind and used you. I’d apologize, but it wouldn’t be truthful.”

“I get it, bub, don’t worry about it. Sorry about your friend, though.” Logan turns his eyes away from Charles and reflects on all the people he’s left behind — some due to age, but most not. “That must’a been rough, bein’ alone.”

Cold fingertips at his shoulder spook Logan, and he jerks away with a splash. Charles is quick to cover the disappointment and surprise on his face, but not before Logan sees it.

“It was… is. I suppose maybe it will always be ‘rough,’ as you put it.” Charles face closes off, and he pushes himself away from the edge and from Logan. “Good night.”

Logan watches the water swallow him, staying until the surface of the tank smooths back out. He leaves reluctantly, but only because nothing stirs at the bottom of the tank. He could swim down and drag Charles up to the surface and force it out of him, what had upset him. But it would do no good. Logan falls asleep that night with something heavy and empty boring a hole into his stomach. His dreams are full of anguish and the last frantic goodbyes to someone he doesn’t know, a face he doesn’t recognize. Waking the next morning brings him no joy.

  
  
  


A stranger, with a strange scent that’s a cross between rust and rotting fish, stands with a hand touching Charles’ tank a few weeks later. Logan and Charles haven’t spoken since that terrible evening, but the sea creature still takes Logan’s daily offering of fish. Said fish waiting in a bucket almost slip out when Logan drops the thing in surprise. The hand pressed to the tank’s glass has long, bony fingers and skin so thin and pale the person might as well be a skeleton. Logan grits his teeth and stomps forward, ready to eject the nosy patron out of the restricted area.

“Circus freaks only, bub. Gonna ask you to leave nicely only once.”

The face that turns to stare at him blankly roots Logan to the spot. He’s seen it in his nightmares. Watery eyes, almost cloudy like a dead fish, stare at him and pick him apart. There’s hair on top of the man’s head, thinning and shining red in the morning light. But everything about the man seems patched together and on the verge of falling apart. A heavy coat drags his shoulders down, and Logan can see his legs shaking in his over-sized jeans. Logan grinds his teeth and readies to give the stranger a final warning, but Charles’ ghostly hand on the inside of the tank stops him.

Charles never wanders this close to the glass wall. At best, anyone walking by catches a ghastly snippet of him, never sure of what they’ve seen but too scared to look again. Charles stares at them with wide eyes and both hands pawing at the glass. Some life returns to steely eyes, and the stranger twists back around to the tank. His hands shake as he lifts them, but they press firm and true to mimic Charles. Logan steps around the stranger’s back to watch Charles shift one hand away. The backs of his clawed fingers caress the glass separating him from the man’s face. There’s a delicate smile on that gaunt face, as if any more joy than this would break him apart.

The stranger shuffles along the tank’s wall, and Charles follows him on his side. They hit the corner where the ladder clings to the top, and Charles leaves the wall to swim to the surface. Still at the bottom, the stranger lifts a gnarled hand and gestures at the lid. It hovers on its own and falls with a crash to the floor, denting the frame. Logan hears the splash at the top of the tank, and he watches as Charles drags his upper half over the wall. It only takes a few rungs of the ladder to bring the stranger within arms reach. Clawed, dripping hands grab at his face when he’s close enough, and Charles holds them still with their foreheads touching. Stomach full of something sour, Logan looks away and wanders back to the bucket of fish. When he returns to the tank, Charles and the new comer are finally exchanging words.

“How did you find me? Where did you go? What happened…” Charles runs out of breath with his rapid fire questions.

The stranger tucks Charles’ wet head into his shoulder and murmurs, “None of that matters, now. I’m here.” Charles’ arms around his neck squeeze tightly, threatening to pull him over the edge. “I’m here.”

Over the thin shoulder he’s buried in, Charles cracks open his eyes and sees Logan standing on the ground, kicking at the dirt. Logan watches them out of the corner of his eye. He’d walk away, honestly, but he’d just have to come back to hand over Charles’ fish. Logan turns his full attention to the pair when Charles unwinds his scaly arms from the stranger’s neck. They both watch him with different sorts of emotion — Charles happier than Logan has ever seen, and the stranger suspicious. Bucket in hand, Logan closes the distance between him and the tank. He stands at the near the bottom of the ladder, waiting.

“I don’t know where to begin,” Charles says while glancing between the two of them. “So much has happened, and…”

“I’m Logan, and you’re trespassing, bub,” Logan offers simply. “So, explain who you are or not, whatever, and get out.”

“Logan this is…” Charles’s gaze wavers from him to the stranger, still twisted around at the top of the ladder to stare at him. “The friend I told you about? The one who was taken away? This is him, um…”

Logan recalls Charles’ explanation at the human name he had adopted. It would make sense that Charles doesn’t know what to call him, since Logan knows him by a pseudonym only.

“Erik,” the stranger offers. “I picked the name up along the way.”

Logan looks him up and down. “Chuck here told me about a missing friend. I’d assumed he was talkin’ about another fish like him.”

“I was once the same,” Erik says, bored. “And now I’m not.”

Logan hums and flicks a hand at him. “You’re in the way of feeding time.”

Water sloshes over the side of the tank, and Charles hoists himself further over the edge. Erik flinches back around with a hand out to catch him. Charles rolls his eyes at the gesture.

“Please, Logan, don’t kick him out,” Charles requests with his big eyes turned on Logan, quite unfairly. “I haven’t seen… Erik… In many years. Please, don’t send him away.”

The bucket in Logan’s hand jerks as he thrusts it toward Erik. Logan tries to keep any bitterness he feels off his face. Erik stares at the bucket with a frown twisting his thin lips. Glaciers in the north melt faster than this is taking, so Logan shakes the bucket at him.

“Take this shit and feed him,” Logan barks out. “I don't have all day, bub.”

Erik’s mouth wrinkles in distaste, at him or the fish Logan isn’t sure, but Charles strikes out with his hand and paws at the food. It’s all Erik needs to take the bucket by the handle and turn back to Charles. Duty done, Logan twists on his boot heel and heads back to his tent. He doesn’t see Charles watch him leave, or how his mouth drops open a little in a half spoken word. But Erik touches his face with fragile fingers, and Charles lets Logan walk away. If he enjoys the fish Erik offers him a bit less than when Logan does, he doesn’t mention it to anyone else.

  
  
  


Erik is a constant presence at Charles’ tank after their reunion. Logan isn’t sure where he’s sleeping at night, but he also tries not to come around anymore. He sees Erik feeding Charles after the first morning and judges that job reassigned. He might not understand Charles or what he is, but he understands the closeness between them. Logan finds himself staring at Erik and trying to find remnants of his life in the sea. The cold wind and frigid water of Charles’ tank don’t seem to faze him as it does other humans. He gladly discards the oversized coat and his sweater underneath to dive into the tank with Charles. There’s not a shred of fear that Charles would harm him. Logan turns his gaze away when their silhouettes kiss in the dark water.

He thinks nothing of it until a dream one night, where he watches Charles drown Erik, and the water of the tank turns murky with blood. Logan wakes in a cold sweat for the first time since he’d learned Charles’ name. Driven by an irrational panic, Logan throws on his jeans, boots, and a coat before dashing into the light snow outside. He knows the path to the tank by heart, could sleepwalk there without Charles’ powers bidding him if necessary. The bones in his hands itch to leap to his call, to fight against something that can’t possibly be real.

He finds Erik’s winter clothes discarded at the foot of the ladder. They’ve been left in a pile without regard to the snow falling from the sky. The man himself shakes at the top rung of the ladder, wind and snowflakes grabbing at his naked skin. Erik’s sickly, pale skin takes on a blue hue to it in the night temperatures. Below him, Charles lurks near the surface of the water, his silhouette blocking the rays of a nearby light. Logan skids in the thin layer of accumulated snow, unsure what he’s seeing.

Charles head breaks the surface of the water, and he finds Logan in the dim of night without hesitation.

“Please, don’t try to stop us,” Charles orders. “I’ll explain everything in time, but I ask you to trust me, Logan.”

Erik coughs, and the force nearly topples him into the water. Charles’ hard eyes soften as they take in the fragile form of his friend. He turns that softer look onto Logan, and a litany of  _ please _ and  _ for me _ fill Logan’s head. He’d raised his fist the moment Charles had spoken, but Logan lowers the threat back to his side. Confused, Logan stands back as Charles nods at him. Erik’s body barely makes a splash as he slips into the water. Charles’ gray arms pull him under immediately, and Logan watches their outlines fade into the depths. Everything is quiet, that sort of quiet that only accompanies heavy snowfall. Logan tilts his head to the sky to watch the snow fall. Charles and Erik don’t surface while he waits, but he waits all the same.

A dreadful amount of time passes when a single head breaks the surface of the tank with a gasp. Logan puts aside his silent promise to stay out of the way and climbs the tank’s tadder at double speed. Charles, bloody and shivering — shivering, of all things — struggles to reach Logan at the edge of the tank. Logan risks falling either to the ground or into the water by pulling at Charles with both hands. He gathers Charles up, but nearly drops him at the sight of two legs and two feet where once there was a tail. Logan has the decency to sputter but not drop his charge. He makes it to the ground, to the pile of Erik’s clothes, before strength leaves him. It’s an oddly empty feeling he isn’t use to.

“You wanna tell me what the hell just happened?” Logan pushes Charles to his new feet and presses his back to the glass tank. “Did you just kill your friend?”

Charles looks upon Logan in wonder, but also with fear and loss swimming in his eyes. His shortness in human form and only slightly smaller eyes lends a femininity to him. Logan grits his teeth and shoves that thought aside for another time. He can’t help the swelling of something delicate in him for this poor creature, though. Logan softens his hold on Charles’ shoulders and wipes wet hair out of his face. The fact that Charles is shivering in his arms, with teeth chattering and everything, still blows Logan away.

“I’m freezing,” Charles says lamely. “It’s awful… Is this what it’s like to be cold?”

Logan sighs with a great burst of steam fogging up the air between them. This conversation would be better had in his tent, with the stove lit and roaring. They can’t leave until Logan is sure, though.

“Answer my question, and I’ll take you somewhere warm. Is Erik dead?”

Charles pulls the coat around his shoulders a bit tighter. “My friend has been dead for a long time, I’m afraid. Only now has the thing walking around as him finally been put to rest.”

Logan shakes him hard, just once, to vent some of his frustration.

“Yes!” Charles nearly shouts at him. “Just when I thought I’d found him, and we could go back to the way things were…” Charles folds in on himself, his new knees giving out. Logan crowds against him to hold him up. Charles’ forehead is nearly dry against Logan’s coat. “Oh Logan, what have I done?”

The scent of the sea lingers on Charles much in the same way it had on Erik, minus the stench of death. Logan tries to help Charles walk, but he’s inconsolable. Grumbling, Logan hefts the young man into his arms and carries them both away from the carnage. He ignores the scars along Charles’ new legs where his torn fins had been. He definitely doesn’t look too closely at similar scars at Charles’ neck, remnants of his gills. The sea leaves her mark on Charles in more obvious ways than she had on Erik.

Scott is nowhere to be found inside the tent, when they burst in from the cold. For once, Logan doesn’t curse Scott’s name. The embers in the stove had burned down to almost nothing when Logan had slept earlier, and it takes a bit of coaxing to start a new fire. The air inside the tent is thick with cold, but not nearly as biting as outside. Logan deposits his mournful bundle on his own cot before trying to get a fire going. When he finally does, he turns around to find Charles buried in the coat and Logan’s blankets.

Logan kicks his boots off and shoves his jeans down once his feet are free. Lying on his side, Charles watches with watery eyes that don’t really see him. Logan climbs over him, leaving Charles on the fire side of the bed. Charles groans when Logan lifts the blanket, temporarily allowing a draft into his warming cocoon. Logan shushes him. Charles has already claimed the pillow, and Logan is too comfortable to get up and steal Scott’s. He stretches out along Charles’ back, too afraid to touch him.

Charles squirms in the coat and manages to twist around to face him. Charles’ arms, with pale skin instead of scales, slither under the blanket and drag along Logan’s ribs. Charles touches him without thinking at first, fingers seeking out the dips between muscles and bones. Logan would allow himself a smile, but sadness hands too heavily in Charles’ exhausted eyes. Charles blinks at him before confusion sets in. The fingers at his chest still. A startled noise slips out of Charles’ mouth, and he lifts the blanket to ogle Logan’s body.

“You’re naked…”

Logan makes a face. “I sleep naked. Well, after you stopped possessing me in the middle of the damn night.”

Confusion wrinkles Charles’ brow. He shivers and asks, “Why?”

“It’s a surprise for people who think they can ambush me while I’m sleeping. They usually aren’t expecting so much action.”

Logan’s attempt at a joke brings a weak smile to Charles’ face, but it withers and dies all too quickly. Charles pulls the blanket up to his nose and lies still while the stove warms them. His arms remain outstretched towards Logan. It’s a simple decision for Logan, to reach out and carefully touch the new hairs growing along Charles’ arms. Charles flinches at the touch, but his fingers snag and capture Logan’s before Logan can reconsider. The first touch opens the floodgates in Charles. Logan finds his arms full of the poor, mourning human. Charles doesn’t make a sound as he presses his face to Logan’s chest.

“Hey,” Logan murmurs with a hand already twisting under Charles to cup the back of his head. His hair crunches, choked with salt, when Logan touches it. “Everything’s gonna be okay. I’m not… mad, or anything. Just confused. I hate not knowing shit.”

Charles hums against his chest and turns his face to speak. “The people who had us contained… They experimented on us, as I’ve said. But they took Erik one day, and I never knew what happened to him. I suppose one of their experiments was to see if they could force us into human bodies. For what purpose, I don’t know. And Erik didn’t know, either. He managed to escape, though, and he’d been looking for me ever since.” He huddles closer to Logan, and his voice drops to a whisper. “Our quality of life at surface pressures is rather poor. He and I were already quite ill when they took him. Forcing a deep sea creature like us to adapt to human life like that? It was killing him.”

Logan nods above Charles’ head. “He didn’t look so hot when I saw him. It makes sense now, why he smelled so bad and looked half dead already.”

Charles doesn’t say anything to that, and Logan holds him tighter in apology. “Sorry…”

“You’re right, though. He was dying. But he needed to make sure I was alive, or so he told me. He wanted to die in the ocean, with both of us there, but I told him that wasn’t possible. I knew if I went back, I’d never return to the surface again.”

Logan frowns. “We coulda made that happen, Charles. Jean woulda helped us, if I’d asked…”

Charles shakes his head. “I didn’t want to leave.” There is deeper meaning in those few words, and Logan can feel them, but he doesn’t interrupt. “But I wanted to help Erik. So I… did.”

“And here you are…”

Charles squirms in his arms and fights his way up the bed to be face-to-face with Logan. His lips are salty and rough when he presses them to Logan’s in an awkward kiss. He stink of salt and a lingering tang of blood. Everything on the bed with them will need a good washing. Logan doesn’t think about that, though, as he holds the back of Charles’ head like something fragile. Charles’ hands are warm on his chest, and that takes Logan a moment to register. Charles has lost so much, only to gain so little. This creature of the dark and biting deep had somehow twisted the laws of nature and become human. To escape loneliness? To leave the sadness of his ocean life behind? The reason why eludes Logan. But Charles pulls away only to kiss him more firmly, frantically, and Logan can only welcome him with a smile.


End file.
